Coastal populations, infrastructure and ecological communities will be directly affected over the next decades by atmospheric warming, accelerated sea-level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms, and variability in sediment-supply rates. Our studies address the complexities of Holocene coastal evolution and the use of the post-glacial sedimentologic record to predict interrelated changes in each of these drivers in forecasting the impact of future climate change on coastal evolution.

Specifically, our work focuses on three themes: (1) links between terrestrial climate change and fluvial sediment export, and their role in the global carbon cycle; (2) the coastal morphologic and sedimentologic imprints of changes in the type and delivery rates of fluvial and marine sediments to the coastal zone in response to past climate and sea-level changes; and (3) couplings between barrier islands and backbarrier systems (marshes, lagoons, etc.) in their responses to changes in sea level and sediment supply. We address these themes over timescales ranging from decades to millennia.

Click on the project titles below to learn more about our projects in several different areas: